


The Wake of the Fall

by AugustArchon



Category: Final Fantasy IV
Genre: Character Study, Developing Relationship, Gen, One Shot, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:42:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26916055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AugustArchon/pseuds/AugustArchon
Summary: A prince without a kingdom, a knight without command, and the rubble of Damcyan on the horizon behind them. Or, a study of two heirs at odds, and how they grate each other down to more than their poor first impressions.
Relationships: Cecil Harvey & Gilbart Chris von Muir | Edward Chris von Muir
Comments: 9
Kudos: 22





	The Wake of the Fall

Cecil Harvey, Edward thinks to himself as they walk the hot sands of Damcyan's coast, is the sort of man one writes songs about.

Not heroic epics or extravagant ballads, mind. No, the tales he belongs in are the grim folksongs recited on long winter nights, which warn children of the monsters lurking both beyond the town's walls and deep in their own hearts. The knight cuts a dark wound against the ocean horizon, crowned in horns like he'd been dragged up from the underworld by his kingdom's most unscrupulous summoners.

Hells, perhaps he had; it's no secret Baron has become a war machine in recent years. A violent cocktail of swelling ambition and failing morals, seething with new, dark magics, primed to raze anything they deem unworthy.

Even the girl at the knight's side casts him wary looks as they trek through the blazing afternoon, as though she half fears he might grow wings, and claws, and devour them all whole. The intuition of children is rarely wrong, Edward reminds himself silently… not that he needs much reminding. His experiences with the knight thus far have been limited to an armored backhand and a cold demand for aid. Cecil's very presence seems suffused with an inky darkness, enough to send dread trickling down Edward's spine.

It's like the ominous rustle of monsters in the night, he thinks. Like the glint of soulless eyes catching the moons' glow, in silent promise that fangs lurk just beneath.

Edward shakes his head and tries to keep his focus on their footing, even as the sand makes the journey feel a dozen times longer than it truly is. His calves ache from the work, but he imagines the knight can't be anything but sweat and scorching flesh under his armor. Rydia seems to be the best off of any of them, at least; she's light enough not to sink so deep as she walks, and has certainly seen more sunlight than Edward despite his travels. He still worries for her, though. A Baron knight's side is no place for a child. He'd ask how she got there, but isn't sure he truly wants to know.

Their rush straight from Damcyan across the shoals has left him shocky and numb, no time to mourn his losses even as monsters on the beach catch them by surprise. Edward pulls Rydia behind him on instinct, reaching for his harp as fear lances him through—these are quiet lands, meant to be safe from such beasts. Their presence feels like an ill omen piled atop his already devastated kingdom.

He barely has time to pluck the first string before Cecil has drawn his sword, leaping into the fray with a scrape of metal on metal.

It's like watching the ocean break against the face of a bluff, trading its spray of mist for blood. Cecil moves with the force of a landslide, cleaving through living flesh as easily as a Damcyan courtier might slice mince pies at a feast, and quickly as it had begun, the fight ends.

A head thumps to the ground, promptly followed by the body it had once been attached to, but Cecil pays neither any notice. Rydia winces at the gore, hesitating halfway through a cast with frost coating her fingertips. There's little need to finish it. Not with the corpses of their foes hacked to pieces among the beachgrass. Edward lets his harp fall silent mid-measure, the last faltered notes hanging dead in the air as he stares at the dark blood staining the sand.

Cecil tugs a rag from his knapsack and wipes down his sword with a few short, practiced motions. Once it's clean, he sheathes the blade back at his hip and makes for the antlion's den at the top of the hill. If the battle affected him at all, he doesn't show it.

"Are you okay?" Rydia still calls, scrambling after him. If Cecil had taken a hit, Edward had missed it entirely.

Cecil just gives a curt shake of his head. "I'm fine," he says, leaving no room for argument. "Save your mana."

The next hours pass in much the same fashion—stretches of silence save for the clink of armor and scuff of sand beneath their feet, punctuated by run-ins with the various beasts who seem to have made the cave system their home. Edward aids as best he can, but he's no knight, and all he has left to his name are his favored harp and the bard's clothes he'd been wearing during the attack on Damcyan. Even Rydia, young as she is, seems more suited to the monsters they're fighting than he is himself.

Of course, it's only a matter of time before their luck (and Cecil's energy) start to falter. The further into the caves they trek, the more the day's exhaustion starts to set in. Rydia starts to look as though she's dredging the bottom of her mana reserves, down to sporadic spellcraft as she brandishes her rod for some meager defense, while Cecil's sword finds little purchase against the amber monstrosities that keep oozing from the walls.

Rydia is the first of their trio to go down, but the next hit sends Edward stumbling to his knees with panic rising in his throat. A knight drenched in blood, a child unconscious at his side… it's all too close to the siege that had laid his land to ruin only half a day prior. A few steps ahead Cecil fights like a man possessed, shadows nipping at his heels like loyal hounds as he whirls, lashing out once, twice, three times in short succession. Every blow gouges deeper than the last, but as they land he grunts like he's the one taking damage.

Edward feels nauseous. Breathless. And so he does the only thing he can think to do: he swings his harp into its harness, bundles Rydia's lax form in his arms, and scrambles to cover behind a rocky ledge. If Cecil calls for him, he doesn't hear it over the roar in his ears.

A river of horror has been cut through his heart. His parents, his lover, his kingdom… all of it now lies buried in memories and rubble, ripped from him in hardly more than an hour. The only direction that remains is forward, trudging behind two strangers in a desperate bid to save a third. Maybe he's followed because he needs to feel like he's able to help someone. _Anyone_. Even a Baron soldier who carries the ghosts of his own massacres in his eyes.

Or maybe it's simply because he has nowhere else to go.

With no phoenix downs to hand, all Edward can do is clutch Rydia to his chest in terror and will her to be alright, even as his arms tremble and he tastes blood in the back of his throat. Her body feels all too much like Anna's corpse in his grasp, but whether his head is spinning from injury or the morning's massacre makes little difference when he can't see straight regardless.

Gods, what is he going to do? His father's advisors had herded the survivors south, hoping to find refuge in Kaipo at least for a few weeks, but what good is a prince to them now? He can't comprehend the vast emptiness of Damcyan's future. His kingdom is a candle snuffed out, nothing left but the scent of charred banners and this numb, animalistic fear fluttering in his ribcage.

"Edward," a voice calls harshly, shearing through his panic. He has the vague sensation it's not the first time the man has said his name, but Edward can't say how many attempts had preceded it.

He looks up, sluggishly, and finds the knight towering over him. It feels a bit like his head is underwater.

"I said give her to me," Cecil says, reaching for Rydia. Edward lets him take her, too shaky to argue even if he'd wanted to. He's pretty sure the part of him willing to fight much of anything had crumbled with his home.

Cecil cradles the girl with surprising care, crushing a phoenix down in his armored fist and then tipping a potion down her throat once she's aware enough to drink it. She grimaces a bit at the taste, but offers Cecil a small smile and lets him help her carefully to her feet.

When Cecil turns his focus back to Edward, though, his voice is steely as the plate mail it filters through. "What in Alexander's name was that?" the knight growls as he flips his visor up, presumably for the sole purpose of glaring daggers at him. "You can't just run off in the middle of battle because you've gotten bored with it!"

Edward has neither the energy nor the spirit to fight that accusation. Instead he spares Cecil a dull glance and tries to wipe the blood from his cheek, though judging from how slick it feels he's probably done little more than smear it. Head wound, he assumes. He knows they tend to bleed nastily.

Cecil huffs a sigh and digs through his bag for another potion, which he tosses down with a pointed look. It slips through Edward's fingers and lands in his lap with a sad thump.

"Wait," Rydia cuts in, sounding betrayed. "You _ran?"_

Edward fumbles with the bottle's cork and ducks his head as shame trickles in. Not enough to properly take hold, not through the numbness, but enough that he mumbles a distant apology.

It's hard to say how much time passes once they're down in the cave network, without the sun for reference. Even harder still when his thoughts swirl in muddy, formless eddies. Cecil's fighting grows more and more vicious the deeper they descend, as though his piling injuries drive him forward… or maybe that's only in Edward's mind. He's fairly certain that shadows can't actually move like they seem to when Cecil hits hardest, which means the stress and exhaustion are probably getting to him.

Rydia starts to take a bit more notice of him after the incident, at least, sparing a bit of her limited mana to bless him with a spell of healing when his steps start to waver. It's enough that Cecil seems to finally recognize the most pressing issue, and hands over a few potions for him to carry. That helps—not least because it allows him to keep an eye on Rydia and aid when she's reaching her limit—but it doesn't keep the panic from creeping back in again as they're flanked by half a dozen Domovoi an hour or so later.

They must have stumbled into a damned nest of the things, or whatever else the monsters use as a spawning ground. It seems as though every one struck down is replaced by two more, on and on until the sound of Cecil's sword impacts becomes such a steady beat that Edward finds himself playing in time, plucking a grim dirge of snow and steel.

One of the Domovoi nicks him in the arm mid-measure, sending a discordant pitch through the cavern. He kicks the thing away with as much strength as he can muster, and tries desperately to focus on the fight they're in rather than the one that dogs his thoughts. The attempt falters again moments later when a second blade clips his calf, and he hates himself for how desperately he wants to fall to his knees and cry. Not out of pain, or even grief, just yet—he's loathe to fully process what happened in Damcyan—but out of desperation, and fear, and the sheer helplessness he feels crashing over him like a storm tide.

He doesn't run, this time. But that's mostly because he can't convince his feet to move.

By the time the last monster falls, Cecil's armor gleams with blood and Edward is trembling badly. His heart skitters in his chest like a frightened colt, harp clutched white-knuckled to his chest, and as he crashes off the adrenaline his legs give and he sinks to the ground.

"Are you okay?" Rydia asks, coming to stand next to him amid the viscera while Cecil investigates an opening he's found at the back of the cave.

"Fine," Edward says, not feeling very fine at all.

Her fingers tap worriedly against her rod as she looks down at him, then over towards where Cecil has disappeared into the shadows and back again. "I'm sorry," she says, the words sounding uncertain. "About this morning. I wasn't very nice."

He shakes his head and scrubs a hand over his eyes. "It doesn't matter," he lies for her sake.

Cecil reappears, slipping through the opening with a clink of metal on rock. "There's space back here to make camp for the night," he calls. "Protected well enough to rest. Come on."

Rydia nods and offers Edward a hand.

He takes it, even though his own is bloody and she's hardly big enough to haul his weight, because it's the first kind gesture he's been offered in wake of the siege. He leverages himself up with his own strength, careful not to pull her forward by mistake, and when she doesn't let go he allows her to lead him back toward the spot Cecil had found. It's a bit of a squeeze to fit through the opening, and the stone scrapes uncomfortably against his injuries, but sure enough there's a little alcove behind it with enough room for them to sleep. The only entrance is the crevasse they'd come in through, but there's enough of an opening through the ground above them to provide a modicum of fresher (if perhaps not as fresh as he'd prefer) air.

Cecil crouches at one side, unpacking a tent along with a small pile of supplies. He flips his visor up again to see better in the dim room, and after a bit of rustling he holds up a metal box toward Edward.

"Are you at least capable of handling a fire?" he asks, blatantly skeptical.

A spark of irritation flickers in Edward's chest at the insinuation, but it dies again quickly without kindling. "In here?" he questions instead.

"There's enough airflow to be reasonably safe," Cecil counters. "I don't intend to sleep with it burning, but I need light to clean my armor and personally I'd rather eat a cooked meal than dry rations." After a moment he appends, half under his breath, "And Rydia's likely cold."

"I know how to start a fire," Edward assures him with a tired grab for the tinderbox.

That much decided, Cecil sets about pitching the tent while Edward gathers enough debris to burn. Rydia helps, ducking back through the entrance to fetch some dead plantlife and a couple of the Domovoi's rough axe handles, and soon enough they have a little blaze going on one side of their sanctuary.

Edward sets his harp aside and leans back against the rocky wall, closing his eyes while Cecil finishes his own task. His fingers ache from plucking the harp strings too long and with too much force, raw in a way they haven't felt in a long time. Not since he'd first learned to play. His legs ache, too, from their hours trekking across sand and uneven stone.

Yet the real danger, he finds, as the fire's warmth kisses his knees, is that this meagre stretch of respite cedes ground to his new reality. It begins to shudder and shift in his mind, finding the cracks in his heart's willful blindness and sinking icy claws down into his gut.

The loss of Damcyan, of home and family and future, hurts in a way too deep and vast to fully process. Yet the longer he sits in the quiet the more fully it seeps into his bones, deeper than any ache his body has to offer. With a shaky breath he pulls his legs to his chest and drops his head against them, letting himself finally feel it. Really feel it, in all its horror and grief and betrayal. In the dust, and blood, and bomb powder he can still smell on his scarf, the one Anna had looped round his neck this morning with a smile so bright it had outshone even the desert sun.

He tucks that memory close to his heart, where he'll never be able to lose it. The warmth of her hands on his cheeks as she kissed him, and the trepidation he'd felt at the idea of following her back to Kaipo to meet her father properly. She'd soothed it down with a nervous laugh of her own, lacing their fingers together in solidarity.

"He'll come around," she'd assured them both, before adding with a chuckle, "And if he doesn't, you can put him to sleep with one of your magic lullabies and we'll run off to become sand hermits."

"I'd better dress for the heat, then," he'd half-joked in return. 

Would that his troubles had stayed so insignificant as when they'd woken this morning, with his lover's head resting idly on his shoulder and the breeze billowing out his bedroom curtains in swathes of pale yellow and ivory. Would that they could have preserved those moments of peace forever, both the waking quiet and the riotous laughter as Anna had dropped a hat onto his head on their way out the door, and told him he'd better start planning the best way to scare unsuspecting passersby once they became hermits of folktale.

Gods, he loves her. Had loved her badly enough to shirk even the duties he'd promised his father he'd keep up with amidst his wandering, chasing her across the desert like he was a moth and she his lantern. Nobody else can make him laugh—could make him laugh, he corrects himself _(will ever_ make him laugh, an even more miserable part of his heart amends)—like Anna. Quick with her words, sharp as a dagger, every bit the best of her father's mind but kind in a way so few people could truly claim to be. He'd loved her. Loves her still. And she'd loved him in return, enough to die for it.

He grips his calves and tries to breathe, until the scuff of armored boots pulls his focus and he finds himself staring wearily up at Cecil's silhouette.

"What?"

"I asked if you wanted supper. If you'd rather sulk like a child, Rydia and I can eat alone."

"I ought to hit you," Edward muses, more bitterly than he thinks he's ever felt before. "I would, had I a more violent personality."

His cheek still smarts from Cecil's own outburst earlier that day. Without a mirror it's impossible to say for sure, but he suspects the bruise is visible.

And the barb lands, shockingly, if Cecil's wince is anything to judge by. Edward hadn't particularly expected it to. But rather than bowing out gracefully, realizing that he's pushed much too far over the day's course, the knight chooses to scoff and double down instead.

"You were being unreasonable," he insists. "There wasn't time to deal with you delicately."

"Oh, I was being _unreasonable?"_ Edward can't help the laugh of disbelief that escapes him. The accusation sparks in his chest, catching on his wounded anger and starting to smolder.

"Cowering like a child as you wept? Yes, I would say so."

Another shocked breath falls from his lips, and something in his chest, wrung fast and taut from Cecil's callousness, finally snaps. Between one breath and the next that tiny fire in his heart roars up into a righteous blaze, wild and bright and fueled by the helplessness that's been drowning him all day.

"Fine," he laughs, mocking. "Call me a coward if it pleases you. Call me foolish. But for what?" he demands to know. "I was wed just yesterday, you heartless brute, and this morning my wife died in my arms while my kingdom crumbled. I didn't even bury her." Edward shakes his head, feeling tears of grief and fury prick at his eyes. "My people, the few who survived, are refugees. My parents were killed by their own allies—by _your_ _men—_ and their blood still stains my clothes."

He looks up at Cecil then, shoving himself to his feet as the first tears spill shamelessly down his cheeks. To hell with nobility. To hell with the knight and his damned pride. Uncaring of the fact that Cecil could easily throw him across the room, Edward grabs him by the top of his breastplate and yanks him roughly forward, forcing Cecil to meet his eyes as the dam inside him breaks.

"I feel like my heart has been ripped out of my chest and trampled," he snarls, voice flayed raw with the truth of it. "I am gods-damned terrified, yet I've followed you here regardless because you need my aid. So no, I won't apologize for the fact that I'm not some warmongering Baron knight, trained only for battle, and slaughter, and pillaging. What I am is a prince, and a musician, and the ugly truth you pretend not to see: I am the devastation you leave in your wake, _Lord Captain_ . And if you can only bear to look me in the eye because you tell yourself my grief is one of childishness, and that my fear means I am fainthearted, then perhaps _you_ are the coward here."

Cecil stares at him, eyes wide and frozen over like a winter lake. "I—"

"The answer is yes," Edward says with a scathing glare, cutting him off. "I am human, and plan to eat tonight. So unless you have a second question that doesn't make you sound so much like an ass, I suggest you leave me the hell alone."

It's shamefully cathartic to hold the man's eye and see the moment he backs down. Feeling at least some tiny bit vindicated, Edward lowers himself back to the ground to clean the blood from his harp before the finish can degrade.

Cecil doesn't move for a few dragging seconds, finally turning on his heel and heading for the tent. Edward refuses to acknowledge him, instead tugging his jacket off and using a clean inner corner to scrub at the wooden frame. Tears stain his cheeks, leaving salt behind even though the fire dries them quickly, and he no longer cares enough to hold them back. He weeps for his family—that of blood, and oath, and duty in equal measure—with ugly, hiccuping sobs until his harp is clean and he has nothing left in him to cry.

If nothing else, at least the others finally do him the courtesy of pretending not to hear.

Some distant time later Cecil deigns to reemerge, steps no longer heavy with the weight of steel. He crouches silently by the fire in Edward's peripheral, starting something cooking before pulling his sword into his lap to clean it down properly.

It's the first time Edward has ever seen him out of armor. They've attended the same banquets on more than one occasion—as nobility of neighboring nations, diplomacy was expected—but the pride of Baron's air fleet was always dressed in that same horned plate.

He's not the brute Edward expects. Stripped of the dark metal, down to his hose and tunic, Cecil is slimmer than the armor makes him look. Athletic, no doubt, but not nearly as intimidating. He's handsome, too, though not in a traditionally Baronic sense; his cheekbones are cut too high for the kingdom, his features not broad enough. His hair is nigh celestial, snow-blonde at the roots but fading into rich gold around his shoulders as though spun by some fey-cursed maiden. By some improbable logic he wears kohl even under his armor, and tints his lips a deep indigo which has long since smeared from sweat and battle. 

Perhaps the greatest shock, though, are the deep circles beneath Cecil's eyes, so dark they nearly look like bruises. Handsome though he is, he's battle-worn and weary, with exhaustion hung from his shoulders like a heavy cloak.

It makes him look human, disconcertingly so; it's easier to stomach his offhand callousness when he seems like nothing more than some summoned horror.

Rydia ducks out of the tent to rifle through Cecil's bag, returning to it with a bundle of cloth under her arm. As the flap slips closed behind her, Cecil bows his head.

"You're right," he admits under his breath, though there's little doubt Rydia can hear every word through the tent's thin fabric. Their little alcove is hardly large enough for sound not to travel. Edward doesn't grace the contextless comment with a response, but looks up such that he's obviously listening, rather than stealing glances as the silence drags out in sullen tension.

Cecil tends to his blade with the care of a lifelong warrior, fingers deft as he cleans bits of fat from the steel. He's fearless of the sharp edge, no doubt too well-practiced to be in any danger of cutting himself, and only once the blade is as clean as if fresh-forged does the knight speak again.

"I no longer march under Baron's standard," he murmurs over the crackling fire. "I've been in exile for weeks now, after my father humiliated me in front of the court and stripped me of rank." He reaches for a small bottle of oil as he speaks, working it onto the blade in methodical circles. "Even then, I burned Mist to the ground on his command, and in doing so put my best friend to death. Well-intentioned carnage is… part of me, now. So yes, you're right. Cruelty without thought is easier than facing what I've willfully become."

Under his attention the metal takes on a deep obsidian gleam, dark and ominous in the flickering light. The lack of blood is almost as damning as if it had been covered in the stuff—there's no question that the sword has seen dozens of tragedies, and then been carried to court as though nothing had ever befallen it. Worn like a badge of honor, no doubt, rather than the mark of death it truly is.

"I've been the same toward you," Cecil admits near-tonelessly. "Heartless for my own ends. You're right to mourn what you lost."

Edward considers him for a long moment, making no attempt to hide his scrutiny. "That almost sounds like an apology," he notes, voice dry. "If a poor one."

Cecil lets out a humorless laugh. "What else do you want, baseless platitudes? Claims of ignorance to Baron's fall from grace? They would only be lies, and regret doesn't bring back the dead." He reaches forward to stir the pot with his off hand. "But for twisting the knife in your wounds, yes, I'm sorry."

Edward nods in acknowledgement. He appreciates the honesty, at least, if perhaps not the bluntness with which it's been delivered. Seemingly content with that small modicum of resolution, Cecil glances back over his shoulder.

"Rydia," he calls. "Dinner's ready."

She scrambles out of the tent moments later, no doubt having been waiting for the invitation, and nearly trips over her own gangly limbs in the process. She settles by the fire with a slim book cradled in her lap, open to a page about halfway through—a collection of Kaipo myths, from the looks of it, abridged into a children's volume.

Cecil serves up their meager meal while she finishes the chapter, scanning down the lines with a finger. They'd had enough stew for two filling meals, Edward suspects, now watered down to stretch among three. Their kit isn't meant for a trio either, as becomes quickly evident. Cecil hands over Edward's and Rydia's portions in small tin bowls and pours the dregs of the pot into a battered camp mug for himself, no third spoon to be had.

Much like everything else that day, their meal is a quiet one, but it's at least a bit less strained than before. Edward hardly considers Cecil good company, but at least he's not making himself actively _poor_ company at the moment, and after a handful of sideways glances Rydia even works up the courage to break the silence.

"How'd you become a bard?" she asks hesitantly. "I mean, you're a prince too, right?"

Edward chuckles, though it falls a bit flat at the end. "My mother gave me my first harp when I was near your age, in what my father has come to call the most ill-advised birthday gift she's ever given," he tells her, trying to at least project good humor even if he's not feeling in any manner of high spirits. It's hardly the girl's fault that his day has been a string of horrors. "When I was twelve, I paid one of the maintenance boys for a spare set of his clothes, and snuck out of the castle in the middle of the night. It took no less than two dozen of my father's best guards to find their crown prince, singing ballads at a terribly dirty bar in a commoner's brothel."

Beside him, Cecil chokes on the stew he'd been trying to drink from his mug.

"What's a brothel?" Rydia asks as the knight descends into a coughing fit, apparently having inhaled his dinner.

"It's—" Cecil manages between coughs, "—of little matter. Something for adults."

Edward scoffs and leans in like he's telling a secret. "It's where men go to kiss women who aren't their wives," he whispers, far too loudly not to be overheard.

With a properly scandalized look, Rydia nods, before pausing to add perhaps a bit too sagely, "Like behind Mister Akerman's stable."

Cecil returns to choking on his dinner, and Edward can't help but feel a spark of petty vindication at the sight. Perhaps that's not terribly noble of him, but he's exhausted, and bloodied, and would trade a hundred lifetimes trapped within the castle walls for one more day laughing with his mother, so he allows himself the moment of weakness. 

As if sensing the mood sour, Rydia scoots closer and pulls her knees up to her chest, eyes hopeful as she cradles her bowl against her legs. "Will you play us something?"

Cecil starts to protest, though for whose benefit Edward doesn't give him the chance to say. This much, at least, is familiar ground.

"I'm sure I could manage."

Rydia's eyes light up and a grin spreads wide across her face. "Really?" she asks.

Edward smiles in return, a little of his misery eased by the simple, boundless enthusiasm of a child. His heart pangs at the realization that he'll likely never have any of his own now, but he tries to ignore that line of thinking. "Yes, really. Give that book here? I spent enough time in the southern desert to have picked up their songs; I might know one of your stories."

He skims the book's index while they tuck into their small cups of stew, finding something he recognizes and flipping through its pages to align his lyrics with the version she's reading. Hers is a bit less gleefully violent than the tavern tune he'd learned, but that suits him fine today. Besides, the work of refitting a song helps focus him away from his grief.

Rydia scrapes the last dregs from her bowl, tapping her feet idly as he fine-tunes the dayworn harp and Cecil gathers the dishes to rinse with a splash of water from his canteen. It's haphazard, but evidently none of them were really prepared for this trip; Cecil had no doubt been planning to restock in Damcyan.

Edward's fingers sting in complaint as he plucks the notes of the old desert melody, but it feels like the first breath of respite he's had that day. The harp's song echoes clear and deep off of the stone as he whisks them off to the nets of an old fisherman who saved Ifrit from the sea, whose son would become the first in the line of the desert's summoners. Long memory guides his fingers across the strings, coaxing the instrument to mimic the filigree wash of salty foam along the shore and the burn of sand whipping across the tops of the dunes. Rydia sits enamored, hugging her book tightly to her chest, and by the third chorus she hesitantly joins in. Then less hesitantly, when he smiles in encouragement.

He thinks he even catches a tired smile from Cecil once, when the knight thinks no one's paying attention to him, but by the time Edward looks up to be certain he's returned to buffing a scratch out of his cuirass.

They have to put the fire out not long after, the song still echoing in Rydia's quiet hum as Cecil grimaces at their bedrolls and blankets. He winds up back-to-back with the man in the cramped tent, trying to share a single too-small blanket, and it's a near guarantee at least one of them will wake with their back sore from sleeping half on stone rather than the bedroll they can't quite fit on. It's a far cry from the lavish bed Edward had fallen into the night before.

It's not the worst lodgings he's had, though, either.

And if nothing else, he prays, maybe he'll be lucky enough to find Anna in his dreams. It's perhaps a fool's hope, given that his waking hours have become nightmares in their own right, but… he prays nonetheless, to Ifrit and Asura, and any other god merciful enough to listen.

Just one more smile, he begs the night. Just let him see her smile one more time.


End file.
